A few days after this a misunderstanding occurred between the Government and the Commander of the British vessels, and the Cirius threatened to open fire on the Brazilian vessels.  The matter was, however, settled without a shot being expended.

In the meanwhile affairs had not been favouring the revolutionists in the south.  Admiral de Mello’s silence had been due to a breakdown in the machinery of his ships, and not to any lack of initiative of his own.  After some time the Admiral arrived at Curitiba, from which point he journeyed inland to Punto Grosso, where he met General Saraiva.  At a council held between the two, a Governor was named for the State of Parana, and Southern Brazil was declared independent of Peixoto’s Government.  When the news of Admiral da Gama’s surrender came to Curitiba, the unexpected blow tended greatly to the disorganization of the movements of the insurgents, and when a division of 5,000 Government troops marched from Sao Paulo to Curitiba, it met with no resistance.

While this was occurring, the revolutionist cruiser Republica and three armed transports, having 1,500 men on board, had sailed for the harbour of Rio Grande.  The summons to surrender was ignored by the town, and Mello, after bombarding the place, landed a force which in the end was repulsed.  After this, despairing of success, Mello sailed to the Argentine port of La Plata, where he surrendered to the Argentine Government, who at once handed his vessels over to Brazil.  The Aquidaban, the remaining insurgent warship, was torpedoed a little later by a Government vessel, and the stricken ship was run ashore and abandoned.

General Saraiva in the south was shot in the course of a skirmish, and the revolution was now finally crushed.  The numbers who paid the fullest penalty for their active discontent were very great, and the final embers of the insurrection were extinguished to the tune of wholesale executions.

It was now supposed that General Peixoto would reign unhampered as dictator, and in peaceful circles no small alarm was felt.  In 1894, however, the President resigned, and was succeeded by Dr. Prudente de Moraes Barros.  Moraes was a stanch upholder of civil and peaceful authority, and although a certain section, both of the army and navy, manifested some discontent, the country progressed rapidly under his administration.

The unrest in the Southern States, nevertheless, although it had been temporarily quelled by force, was not long in reasserting itself.  The struggle which occurred here between the Government troops and the revolutionary forces was sanguinary in the extreme.  After a desperate action, Admiral da Gama, wounded, committed suicide, and his death practically ended the revolution.  Towards the end of 1895 the President, true to his pacific policy, granted a general amnesty in favour of the insurgents, which went far to establish his popularity.  In the south, subsequent to a demonstration of local unrest, an attempt to assassinate President Moraes occurred on November 4, 1897, in the course of which the Minister of War was killed, and several other officials wounded.  People in general execrated the act, thus demonstrating the President’s popularity.